INTERNATIONAL LABOUR ORGANIZATION, THE. This organization was created in 1919 by Part XIII. of The. This organization was created in 1919 by Part XIII. of the Treaty of Versailles, headed "Labour." This part was repro duced in all the later peace treaties, appearing as Part XIII. of the Treaties of Saint Germain, Neuilly, Trianon, and Part XII. of the Treaty of Sevres. These treaties are the first known to history to contain articles dealing with labour.
The idea of protecting labour by international conventions may be traced back to the humanitarian theories of a handful of thinkers who over a century ago foresaw the necessity of estab lishing economic co-operation among the nations in order effec tually to remedy the evils which might spring from the develop ment of modern industry. The name of Robert Owen is of ten quoted as a pioneer of international Labour legislation on account of the two memoranda which he submitted to the Congress of Aachen in 1818. But though Owen was indisputably a pioneer of protective legislation, his memoranda do not contain the idea of an understanding between governments for the establishment of identical protective measures in favour of their wage-earners. A French industrialist, Daniel Le Grand, attempted to promote this idea between 1840-6o. But it was only after 1890 that certain governments began to show an interest in it. A conference was held in Berlin, convened by the German Government, but it con fined itself to enunciating a few very general principles. At last, in 1900 the idea took form when a private organization, encour aged and subsidized by certain governments, was formed under the name of the "International Association for Labour Legisla tion" with headquarters at Basle.
In 1905 a technical conference summoned by the Association worked out two draft labour conventions, the one dealing with the limitation of night work for women in industry, the other with the prohibition of the use of white phosphorus in the match industry. In 1906 a diplomatic conference adopted these drafts and a few states ratified them. A new technical conference was convoked in 1913 to regulate by new conventions the prohibition of night work for young persons employed in industry and to fix a 1 0-hour working day for women and young persons. The second diplomatic conference was due to assemble in the autumn of 1914. Meanwhile, the World War broke out. The work was taken up again and officially consecrated by the peace treaties which con cluded the War of 1914-8.
"The Treaty of Peace which will end the war and will assure to the peoples political-economic liberty and independence," said the London manifesto, "must also safeguard the working class of all countries from the attacks of international capitalist competi tion and assure it a minimum guarantee of moral and material order as regards labour legislation, trade union rights, migration, social insurance," etc.
Immediately after the War these tendencies grew far more pro nounced. Revolutions had broken out in the conquered countries and their character had been invariably social. In the victorious countries the leaders of the governments pronounced, in accord ance with the general feeling, that the working classes must re ceive a new place in the national communities. In Feb. 1919, at Berne, the trade unions of all European countries, allied, neutral, or defeated, claimed a labour charter and suggested that the old association, with its labour office, should be transformed into a great official organization of international labour legislation. A few days earlier (Jan. 2g, 1919) the peace conference had re solved to constitute a commission for international labour legisla tion under the presidency of Samuel Gompers, and had called on it "to enquire into the international means necessary to secure common action on matters affecting the conditions of employ ment." The commission sat during February and March, 1919. It worked out a text which, having been adopted by the peace conference on April II and 28, 1919, became part XIII. of the Treaty of Versailles.
I. Universal peace, which it is the object of the League of Na tions to establish, can be established only if it is based on social justice, and social justice implies the working out of equitable conditions of labour, which it is urgently necessary to apply.
2. The regulation of labour conditions must be accomplished internationally because "the failure of any nation to adopt hu mane conditions of labour is an obstacle in the way of other nations which desire to improve the conditions in their own countries." 3. Examples of the methods of improving conditions of labour were given : the establishment of a maximum working day and week, the prevention of unemployment, the provision of an ade quate living wage, the protection of the worker against sickness, disease and injury arising out of his employment, the protection of children, young persons, and women, provision for old age and injury, protection of the interests of workers when employed in countries other than their own, recognition of the principle of freedom of association, the organization of vocational and tech nical education and other measures.
In another article (427) of the Treaty of Peace, these principles are formulated afresh and in a more precise form and recognized as "well fitted to guide the policy of the League of Nations" in industrial matters. These principles having been laid down, the Peace Treaty prescribed that a permanent organization should be established for their promotion. The commission, on meeting in Paris, was approached with proposals emanating from workers' representatives and even from certain states (such as Italy) which aimed at permitting a sort of international parliament to decree labour conditions which every state would be compelled to adopt. Such proposals appeared incompatible with the idea of national sovereignty as entertained by most states. The Interna tional Labour Organization, it was thought, should not form a "super-state," any more than the League of Nations. The Corn mission adopted as a basis of its deliberations a British draf t which was more modest and, above all, more elastic, and attempted to reconcile the independence of individual states with the au thority of an official organization.
The system adopted was as follows: The International Labour Organization consists of two essential organs : the General Con ference of representatives of the membeis, and an International Labour Office controlled by a governing body. The conference meets "from time to time as occasion may require and at least once in every year." It is composed of four delegates of each of the member states, of which two are government delegates and the two others represent respectively the employers and the workpeople. These last two delegates must be chosen by the governments in agreement with the industrial organizations, if such organizations exist, which are most representative of em ployers or workpeople, as the case may be, in their respective countries. This shows a characteristic feature of the new organ ization. In the Assembly of the League of Nations only Govern ment delegates have seats, but in the Labour Organization dele gates representing the employers and the workpeople of the member states intervene. This indicates the solidarity of eco nomic and protective forces which has imposed itself on the world since the War.
The conference deals with questions which have been included in its agenda by the governing body, and the agenda is trans mitted to the member governments four months before the meet ing of the conference. At the close of its discussions it may adopt recommendations or draft conventions by a majority of two-thirds of the votes cast by the delegates present, but not otherwise. The member states undertake that, within a year at most from the closing of the session of the Conferences, or if special circumstances prevent this, in no case later than eighteen months, they will bring the recommendation or draft convention before the authorities within whose competence the matter lies, for the enactment of legislation or any other action. In the case of a recommendation the member states will inform the Secretary General of the League of the action taken. In the case of a draft convention the member will, if it obtains the consent of the proper authorities, communicate the formal ratification of the convention to the Secretary-General and will take all necessary action to make the convention effective.
It is necessary to consider the exact weight which the system carries. The states, under the Peace Treaty, have not undertaken to ratify automatically all draft conventions adopted by the Inter national Labour Conference, but only to submit the drafts to the authorities competent to enact the legislation. They are still free to ratify or not. But when there was only the International Associ ation for Labour Legislation, before the War, the states which had sent plenipotentiaries to the diplomatic conferences were not even bound to approach their parliaments with the resolutions adopted. The obligation which they have now undertaken may seem to carry little weight, since each state remains free, within its sovereign rights, to ratify or not; but in essence the whole system rests on an appeal to the public opinion of each of these states, and an appeal to parliament, the authoritative expression of this opinion. The whole mechanism invented by the negotia tions of the treaty constitutes an act of faith in the feeling of justice which should animate corporate humanity.
Once the conventions have been ratified, the mechanism of their application instituted by the Peace Treaty develops in the follow ing manner : by the act of ratification the states contract a mutual agreement to respect equally all clauses contained in a convention. They must allow mutual supervision of their application of these clauses. By Art. 408 of the Treaty of Versailles they undertake to send an annual report to the conference in which they give a list of the measures for such application. Comparison of these reports may always form the subject of discussion at the con ference. It may be noted that, to facilitate this discussion, the Conference decided at its Eighth Session to set up a committee to examine the summaries of these reports. To prepare for this work, the Conference also invited the governing body to appoint a technical committee of experts. The committee of experts met for the first time in 1927 and submitted a report to the governing body, which was transmitted to the Conference. If one of the ratifying states fails to apply the convention, or applies it im perfectly, other ratifying states, or even industrial associations of employers or of workers, may file complaints. When such com plaints are received, the governing body of the International Labour Office must deal with them. If necessary it may submit the complaint to a commission of enquiry (Art. 411-414). In the last instance, The Permanent Court of International Justice can be called on to pronounce judgment. This court may even, under Art. 418, indicate the measures, if any, of an economic character which it considers to be appropriate and which other governments would be justified in adopting against a defaulting government.